Yorks, Owsinski Grab Titles As Men Take Third

Sunday, May 17

Los Angeles, CA

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University of Washington

Pac-12 Championships

Photo by: Washington Athletics

May 18, 2015 | Track & Field

By: Washington Athletics

The tape-delayed broadcast of the Pac-12 Men's and Women's Track & Field Championships will air on the Pac-12 Networks on Sunday, May 24 at 9 a.m. PT.

LOS ANGELES – A heart-stopping victory from junior Izaic Yorks and some historic dominance from the Husky women's pole vaulters were the biggest of many thrills for Washington as the Pac-12 Championships wrapped up at UCLA's Drake Stadium. The Washington men's team was projected in the bottom half of the conference coming in, but proved that “on paper” was just that, as the Huskies climbed to third in the final standings, matching the second-best finish in school history.

Yorks became just the second Husky man to win the 1,500-meters in conference history, while Kristina Owsinski led a UW sweep of the top-three spots in the women's vault. Washington scored 84.5 points on the men's side to take third, with Oregon winning with 152 points followed by USC with 121 and the Huskies in third. UCLA with 83 points and Arizona State with 75 rounded out the top-five. The only higher finish for UW in conference history was a second-place finish in 1976 when it was still the Pac-8. The men also were third in 1996 and 1997.

The Husky women's team placed seventh overall but was just two points away from being alone in fifth. Oregon won a tightly contested battle with USC, 185 to 182. Stanford was third with 87 points, ASU had 72 for fourth, and UCLA and Washington State tied for fifth with 64 points, just one more than Washington's 63.

The Dawgs outperformed the form chart again and again with numerous season and career-bests. Three of the four Husky relay teams got on the podium today, with the women's 4x100m relay crushing a school record that had stood for thirty years. Maddie Meyers was on the podium twice, taking third in both the 1,500-meters and the 5,000-meters. Newcomer Casey Burns had a stunning day with multiple PRs including the No. 2 triple jump in school history, to place second overall, and Frank Catelli led the throwers with a career-best discus toss of 183-2 to take fourth.

Yorks, the Lakewood, Wash. native and the fastest miler in school history, had the biggest moment of his career thus far with the dramatic 1,500m win. Yorks took the field out at a conservative pace and did the work from the lead as no other runner stepped up to the front. Going into the final lap, a couple runners started to move past Yorks, and he dropped back to around sixth but never looked to be struggling. Around the final turn, Yorks got to the outside, and came flying down the outer lane, catching and passing Cal's Thomas Joyce just before the finish. Yorks won in a time of 3:46.42, edging Joyce who ran 3:46.46.

Yorks is just the second Husky to win the event and the first since Bruce Stirling in 1987. Less than 90 minutes after that race ended, Yorks was back on the track in the final of the men's 800-meters. The pace was quick, and Yorks was battling fresh opponents, but he still managed to add two more points with a seventh-place finish in 1:51.20.

On Saturday, four Husky men's vaulters finished first, second, fourth, and seventh for 25 points. Today, four women's vaulters outdid even that outstanding total. The women's pole vault turned into a three-woman battle between three Huskies: Owsinski, defending champ Diamara Planell Cruz, and sophomore Elizabeth Quick. Owsinski had an early scare when she missed two tries at 13-2 ¼, but she flew way over on her third attempt and proceeded to make her next five heights on first attempts.

Quick cleared a new PR of 13-6 ¼ and was second, until Planell Cruz had a third-attempt make at 13-8 ¼ to stay alive. Quick finished up third for the second straight year. Planell Cruz, who has been battling a foot injury all outdoor season, did not want to let her title go without a fight, but Owsinski kept clearing on first attempts, and Planell Cruz had one miss each at 14-0, 14-2, and 14-4. Owsinski made 14-2 on one try, before finally missing at 14-4.

Along with the 1-2-3 finish, redshirt freshman Kaitlin Zinsli also had a PR clearance of 12-10 ¼ to take seventh, giving the Huskies a total of 26 points in the event. Washington swept the pole vault titles for the second straight year for assistant coach Pat Licari. His vaulters have now won nine Pac-12 titles.

The shocker of the day came from redshirt freshman Casey Burns, who in his first year of track and field, after not competing in track as a freshman and then going into the Army Reserves for a year, came out and set a PR of almost three feet to take second-place in the men's triple jump. Burns came in seeded outside the top-10 in the conference, with a season-best of 49-0 ½. His first jump was a solid 48-6 ¾, but from there Burns went on to surpass his old PR on all of his next five attempts. His second went 50-8 ¼, his first over 50-feet. But he'd add another full foot to that in round five, as he jumped 51-8 ½ to move up to second-place. That's where he would finish, as the 51-8 ½ mark is the No. 2 mark in school history, and a freshman record.

The top point scorer today on the women's side was Meyers, who added to her outstanding sophomore season with her first two podium spots at Pac-12s. In the 1,500 final, ASU's Shelby Houlihan, the NCAA champion, took it out fast right away, with Stanford's Elise Cranny going with her but a big gap forming to the chase pack, which Meyers was leading. Meyers made a choice to leave the pack and get up to the lead pair, and she then settled into third going into the final lap. Coming down the final 100 meters, Houlihan pulled away to win in a meet record 4:11.06, but Colorado's Sara Sutherland came up to pass Meyers for second, but Meyers got the spot back by kicking past Cranny and outleaning her for third in 4:14.03.

The time was a five-second career-best for Meyers and jumps her up to No. 5 on the Husky top-10 list, just ahead of 2006 NCAA 1,500m Champion Amy Lia. Meyers returned to the track later in the day for the 5,000-meters. She took the lead for the first part of the race to help push the pace, until Houlihan again made a move and the ASU senior would pull away for a second title. But Meyers would have a big finishing kick once again to pass Arizona's Elvin Kibet over the last few strides to take third once again in 16:09.58.

Washington had a memorable day getting the baton around the track, as assistant coach Raul Sheen's sprinters made the podium in three of the four relay events. It started with a bang in the first track final of the day, the women's 4x100-meter relay. UW came in seeded fourth and owning the No. 2 time in school history this season, but the group of Haley Jacobson, Kennadi Bouyer, Gianna Woodruff, and Sierra Peterson outdid themselves once again, rolling to a school-record time of 44.57 seconds. That broke the old record of 44.74 seconds set back in 1985, and moves the Huskies to No. 6 in the West this year. USC won in a meet record of 43.10, followed by a 43.65 from Oregon.

The men's 4x100m relay shortly followed the women to the podium, earning a third-place finish of its own. Lucas Strong, Quadelle Satterwhite, Jacopo Spano, and Chris Williams got the stick around in a season-best 40.11 seconds to finish behind USC and Oregon once again.

The last event of the day was the men's 4x400-meters. With the final split into two heats, Washington was seeded into the first heat, with the fastest five teams seeded in heat two. But the Huskies ran their heat to win, with Satterwhite, Spano, freshman Drew Schreiber, and sophomore Andrew Brown leading nearly wire to wire and winning the heat in a time of 3:10.96. In heat two, Oregon and Arizona pulled away to run 3:05.84 and 3:06.35, respectively, but the next team across was USC in 3:11.94, and the Huskies had grabbed another third-place finish.

Following a disappointing day in the shot put on Saturday, junior Frank Catelli and freshman Jack Lembcke both came out for redemption in the discus today. Lembcke would throw three PRs in his series, the first one going the farthest, a mark of 172-9. He would be seventh until two throwers passed him in the final round, putting him ninth overall. Catelli came up with a big four-foot PR on his second attempt, tossing 183-feet, 2-inches to move into second. He would also have a big toss of 182-2 on his final throw, winding up fourth overall when the dust settled. Catelli is the first Husky to score in the men's discus since Will Conwell was fourth in 2006.

Three Husky hurdlers picked up points today, led by a fourth-place finish for Chris Williams in the 110m hurdles. Williams was out very fast but clipped the seventh hurdle to disrupt his run just enough as he finished up fourth in a time of 14.15 in his third career final. Williams scored 13 individual points with his runner-up pole vault finish, and anchored the 4x100m relay to six more.

Senior Gianna Woodruff was also in contention for a podium spot but also was slowed near the end by hitting a late hurdle, and she wound up fifth overall in a time of 58.02 seconds, still just three-tenths off her PR despite the uncharacteristic stumble. In the 100m hurdle final, junior Kimberly Stueckle got into the points for the first time with a sixth-place finish in 13.96 seconds. Senior Naivasha Sophusson Smith was also in the final but appeared to tweak something in the race and came in ninth.

Also picking up their first career individual points today was senior Chase Walker in the high jump and sophomore Andrew Brown in the open 400-meters. Walker cleared a PR of 6-9 ½ to tie for seventh and earn 1.5 points for the Husky cause. Brown, who had a PR of 47.01 in the prelims yesterday, was just an eyelash off that time today, running 47.02 to finish sixth overall.

Two more sixth-place finishes came from junior Quadelle Satterwhite in the 200-meters final, and junior Baylee Mires in the 800-meters. Satterwhite got a bit closer to the 21-second mark with a time of 21.09 in the final, while Spano was ninth in 21.54. In the 800-meters, Mires could never quite get into the mix up front, and settled for sixth in 2:07.26, while freshman Rose Christen was ninth in 2:09.65.

Early in the day, redshirt freshman Gina Flint got into the scoring column for the second time this weekend. She sailed the discus 164-feet, 4-inches, just three feet off her PR, to take seventh overall and earn two points, added to the one she garnered for an eighth-place shot put finish on Saturday. Freshman Onyie Chibuogwu also had a PR in the discus of 142-5 to place 10th.

Senior Jaleecia Roland had a good day in the triple jump, but after making the final with a mark of 39-11 1/4, she had some foot pain that forced her to pass her final three attempts, and she wound up in ninth-place overall.

The Huskies will now wait and see how the NCAA Preliminary fields shake out, with the qualifying Dawgs traveling to Austin, Texas for West Prelims from May 28-30.

Husky Quotes

Head Coach Greg Metcalf

On the men's performance: The Pac-12 Championships, everyone has their own form chart of what they believe is going to happen, and it's fun to come in here and beat what the projections say. We blew up the form chart because we had a lot of great surprises. Casey Burns in the triple jump, PR'd multiple times today, and to jump 51-8 was fantastic. Frank Catelli rebounded from what I think for him was a disappointing shot put and had a great, competitive effort in the discus. Izaic Yorks those were 12 hard-fought points he got. Our men to be third in the 4x1 and the 4x4 was incredibly fun to watch. Our men top to bottom were competitive and they battled the whole time.

On the women's performance: On the women's side, Maddie Meyers had a phenomenal weekend. To do what she did in our conference at 1500 and the 5k was an incredibly strong performance. The women, we walk out of here today, if we score two more points we're fifth-place, but I think we went out and score all over the place. Our women crush our school record in the 4x1. The pole vault sweep? Coach Licari, are you kidding me? He's a good track team. You go one-two-three, but then also Kaitlin Zinsli, a girl who on the form chart was nowhere near scoring and she takes seventh so we got those kinds of efforts.

Kristina Owsinski, champion of women's pole vault

On sweeping the top three spots: It was so exciting. Once we kind of wiggled our way into one-two-three, and got all those other girls out of the competition, it got really exciting. I was just so happy to be up there with my teammates. My goal was to jump some high bars today, and use it as a springboard into Regionals and hopefully NCAAs.

On third-attempt make at 13-2 ¼: We always have to have one third-attempt jump, right? Third attempt jumps always get a little bit nervewracking, but I knew that I just needed to stay calm and focused, hit the plant hard and swing up and get over that bar any way possible. So it was a bit overwhelming but once I got it, I got on a roll from there.

Izaic Yorks, champion of men's 1,500-meters

On how the race unfolded: I wasn't worried (about leading). Somebody has to put on the pants, as they say. I think it played out well for me because I don't mind being up front. I was leaving room for somebody to come up, but nobody did, so I just said okay I'll just take it slow until someone wants to push a little bit.

On the final kick: On the backstretch I wouldn't say I was in a good spot, as I was completely boxed in, but I would say that my attitude in that moment was way better than it's ever been. I was completely calm, cool, and collected, as Metcalf likes to say. Just looking around waiting for my moment to swing wide and come around. There's always going to be a small gap, you just have to be ready for it. I one-hundred-percent believed I could do it.

Casey Burns, runner-up in the triple jump

On the huge career-bests today: Really what I think it was, was I went back and watched a lot of film from high school, because then I was much smaller physically but only jumping a foot or two shorter, so I was like 'what is the difference?' It just kind of clicked for me what I needed to do and what I needed to work on. It's starting to come back together. I'm starting to feel a little bit less like a soldier and a little bit more like an athlete now. It was nice.

On going from out of track to second at Pac-12s in one year: It may sound kind of cocky, but my form felt so shoddy throughout the season, and people said I was doing well and I was right in there but I just knew how it felt when I was younger, and I hadn't felt that way yet. I couldn't put the pieces together, but now it feels nice and like I'm all the way back.

Haley Jacobson, lead leg on the school record 4x100m relay

On getting on the podium in her final Pac-12 meet: It feels really, really, really good. That was really fun. I think I've taken more pictures just now than I have my entire life. Having the boys go (third) right after us, there is no better way to go out. That was awesome. I think now we're safely in Regionals obviously and so I think our focus should be getting to Eugene. I don't know when the last time we took a 4x1 to nationals was, so the fact that the chance is on the table is a really exciting feeling. We want to add a couple more weeks onto our season.

Maddie Meyers, third in the 1,500m and 5,000m

On the 1,500-meters: After about 400-meters, Shelby (Houlihan) went out hard, which is super nice of her to go out there and set the pace. But I got stuck in the pack, and after about 300-meters I had to decide do I go up and try to catch them or just hang back and have a hard kick? But I thought taking the chance of getting up there was going to be my best bet. So I made my way up there and just stuck there as long as possible. I knew that I just ran to get on the podium that a fast time would probably come out of it, but I was surprised to see such a big PR. I'm super happy, it was a good Pac-12s.

2015 Pac-12 Track & Field Championships

May 17, 2015 – Day 2 of 2

Los Angeles, Calif. – UCLA – Drake Stadium

Final Team Standings

Men

1. Oregon 152; 2. USC 121; 3. Washington 84.5; 4. UCLA 83; 5. Arizona State 75; 6. Arizona 73.5; 7. Colorado 68; 8. California 66; 9. Stanford 64.5; 10. Washington State 31.5.

Women

1. Oregon 185; 2. USC 182; 3. Stanford 87; 4. Arizona State 72; 5. Washington State 64; 5. UCLA 64; 7. Washington 63; 8. Colorado 43; 9. Arizona 36; 10. Utah 14; 11. Oregon State 6; 12. California 3.

Husky Point Scorers (Top-Eight Finishers)

Men

1. Izaic Yorks, 1500m, 3:46.42

2. Casey Burns, Triple Jump, 51-8 ½

3. Strong/Satterwhite/Spano/Williams, 4x100m Relay, 40.11

3. Satterwhite/Spano/Schreiber/Brown, 4x400m Relay, 3:10.96

4. Chris Williams, 110m Hurdles, 14.15

4. Frank Catelli, Discus, 183-2

6. Quadelle Satterwhite, 200m, 21.09

6. Andrew Brown, 400m, 47.02

7. Izaic Yorks, 800m, 1:51.20

7 (tie). Chase Walker, High Jump, 6-9 ½